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Michael Fletcher writes about the national economy for the Post, where he has been a reporter since 1995. Previously, he was a White House correspondent and he also has covered national education policy, race relations and the District government. Prior to coming to The Post, he spent 13 years as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun. Fletcher is co-author of "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas," published by Doubleday in 2007. Born and raised in New York City, Fletcher is a graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School and Boston University.

Ariana Eunjung Cha writes about the economy for the Post and is the Web editor for its national economy and business section. She has served as the paper's bureau chief in Beijing, Shanghai and San Francisco and as a correspondent in Baghdad.

Brady Dennis writes about economic policy and financial regulation. Before coming to The Post in September 2008, he was a staff writer at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. At the Post, he was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and a Gerald Loeb Award for a three-part series he and a colleague wrote about the rise and fall of American International Group.

Zachary Goldfarb has covered the U.S. financial crisis for The Post for more than three years. Originally from Manhattan, he is a graduate of the Princeton University and now lives in Washington, D.C. He enjoys vegetarian cooking, is getting started as a cyclist and spends too much time obsessing over gadgets.

Jia Lynn Yang is a staff writer at The Washington Post who covers policy that affects corporate America. She's interested in taxes, regulation and all the ways that business and Washington try to influence and make sense of one another. Before joining The Post, Jia Lynn was a Washington correspondent for Fortune magazine.

Neil Irwin writes about the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve. He has been at the Post since 2000 and has an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism. His interests include bond market data, cured pork products, and pinot noir.

Lori Montgomery writes about national economic policy emanating from the White House and Capitol Hill. A former foreign correspondent who traveled Europe pre-euro, she also covered domestic politics in such disparate locales as Dallas and Detroit. She has three kids, one dog and no time for your so-called "interests."

Ylan Q. Mui covers the consumer economy and has been a member of the Financial staff since 2005 and a staff writer since 2002. She is also an adjunct journalism instructor at the University of Maryland. Ylan graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans, where she was born and raised.

Howard Schneider covers international economics and trade for the Post. He has served in a variety of roles at the paper, three tours abroad in Israel, Egypt and Canada, and as economics editor. He is a native of Maryland's Eastern Shore, and proudly includes a chief oyster inspector among his ancestors.

Mike Shepard is the Night Editor for Economy and Business News. A graduate of Georgetown University, Mike has worked at the Post for 22 years in a variety of editing assignments. He spent 1997 teaching journalism in Brazil on a Fulbright scholarship and is a fluent speaker of Portuguese.

Political Economy explores how political forces in Washington and elsewhere in the world shape the economy and how corporate agendas influence political institutions and politicians. The blog offers new perspectives on the day's top economic and business stories with exclusive interviews with government officials and lawmakers, commentary from influential economists and analysis from Post reporters. Ariana Eunjung Cha is the blog's lead writer and Mike Shepard is the author of the daily economic agenda.

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Posted at 11:30 AM ET, 12/17/2010

WikiLeaks' Assange says he'll release bank information in Jan.

By
Sarah Halzack

In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Julian Assange said his organization plans to release information about banks some time in January.

The WikiLeaks founder did not say which firms would face leaks or what type of data or information that would entail. But in recent weeks, speculation has swirled that Bank of America is the prime target. Those assumptions are largely based on an October 2009 interview that Assange gave to Computer World, in which he said, "At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive's hard drives," he said. "Now how do we present that? It's a difficult problem."

Assange also said Friday that his organization "has been attacked" by banks in the United States, United Kingdom, Dubai and Switzerland. It was unclear what type of alleged attacks he was referring to.

Keep an eye on how Bank of America's stock performs today. The last time Assange spoke of his plans to release information about a financial institution, Bank of America's stock dropped more than three percent.

I never thought that I would defend banks but the nonsense coming from the WikiLeaks patronizing network and its ego-centric anti-everything-but-me leader Assange has achieved just that.

So what specific attacks have the banks perpetrated toward WikiLeaks? Have they perhaps actually discussed how to defend themselves or limit the damage from his illegally hacked information without publishing their discussions on his patronage network first? How dare them defend themselves against the above-the-law WikiLeaks organization without prior consultation with the almighty one Assange.

Give me a giant break please! This emperor is so naked it screams. Those who fail to hear are so far gone in conspiracy theories or anti-Americanism that they are deaf.

So any entity that offends Wikileaks
personnel (who jokingly wear masks to hide their identities and are reluctant to give a home address in order to get bail) could
theoretically face retribution--we might
look forward to reading our address, telephone number, medical/dental/
financial/education etc. histories on the Internet. Is not that a form of intimidation or terrorism? Today, State Department cables, tomorrow, bank information, some day, the world. Everything is on computerized records now--
it's just that most people respect others'
personal cyberspace. Just because something CAN be done, it doesn't mean it
SHOULD be done.

One thing that still doesn't make sense about Assange is that he went a b-grader techie school. You see, Melbourne is like Boston, and Melbourne University is like Harvard, which is not a good engineering or techie school, while the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is like MIT, and is Australia's number one Architecture and Engineering and techie school (our professors at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology used to tell us that anytime we didn't feel like giving it our hundred and ten percent we could feel free to wash-out and take the mile hike to Melbourne University because Melbourne University would take b-graders), now if you were to tell some guy who went to MIT that a geek came out of Harvard and was threatening the world with his technical prowess (and I am not talking about Bill Gates who went to Harvard Law School - so that doesn't count) he'd laugh at you, similarly I have trouble not laughing everytime people talk about Assange's techie credentials - they made politicians at Melbourne University (its a law school, a business school and a med school) not techies nor geeks nor engineers nor architects (it stank in technical fields and engineering and architecture), their students spent their time looking prissy and not sitting infront of computers (unlike the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where the students spent their time sitting infront of computers - even in the nontechnical fine arts department). So who propped a b-grader like Assange up and why? lol.

One thing that still doesn't make sense about Assange is that he went to a b-grader techie school. You see, Melbourne is like Boston, and Melbourne University is like Harvard, which is not a good engineering or techie school, while the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is like MIT, and is Australia's number one Architecture and Engineering and techie school (our professors at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology used to tell us that anytime we didn't feel like giving it our hundred and ten percent we could feel free to wash-out and take the mile hike to Melbourne University because Melbourne University would take b-graders), now if you were to tell some guy who went to MIT that a geek came out of Harvard and was threatening the world with his technical prowess (and I am not talking about Bill Gates who went to Harvard Law School - so that doesn't count) he'd laugh at you, similarly I have trouble not laughing everytime people talk about Assange's techie credentials - they made politicians at Melbourne University (its a law school, a business school and a med school) not techies nor geeks nor engineers nor architects (it stank in technical fields and engineering and architecture), their students spent their time looking prissy and not sitting infront of computers (unlike the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where the students spent their time sitting infront of computers - even in the nontechnical fine arts department). So who propped a b-grader like Assange up and why? lol.

It appears that some posters here need to learn what Wikileaks is about before commenting on the "techie" skills of Mr. Assange. Assange is not a hacker etc. nor does he claim to be. People from around the world are blowing the whistle by forwarding information to Wikileaks.

Banks are fair game, that's what this world recession is about. Greed graft and ponzi skills of the rich and famous will fall in kind.

Far more important than diplomatic tittle-tattle is getting into the public doain any information available about what the banksters have been up to. Little people across the western world are being robbed blind in the form of tax rises and public spending cuts in order to (illegally in my view) cover the loses of massively corrupt financial institutions. If wikileaks can shed light on their dishonest behaviour they will be performing a great service for the public good.

So far, there has been more sizzle than steak, and this guy acts like he is the crusader for justice when all he really seems to be is a self promoting, self aggrandizing, egotistical jerk.
In the end he may very well end up with a bullet in him. Not all of the people he is messing with enjoy having their stuff all over the web.

Sarah, you need to do some basic investigative journalism. The 'attacks' that Assange refers to relate to financial restrictions placed on Wikileaks by large companies. These include Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and now Bank of America. Is this the true face of American Corporate so called Democracy?
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/12/17/1918671/bofa-cutting-off-wikileaks-payments.html

Sarah, you need to do some basic investigative journalism. The 'attacks' that Assange refers to relate to financial restrictions placed on Wikileaks by large companies. These include Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and now Bank of America. Is this the true face of American Corporate so called Democracy?

********************************************************************************************
America's democracy is NOT corporate. These are private businesses. There is no face of American Corporate so called Democracy because there is no such thing as American Corporate Democracy. The ‘American’ companies are within their rights as Mr. Assange is abusing his service agreements with these companies.

As far as the other posters cheering on disclosure of banking information would you be so cheerful if it was your (you hope) private information which was being disclosed? I bet that if your personal information ends up on Wikileaks that you will change your tune in a hurry.

He's announcing he'll release it in January in order to give the market (investors) time to turn on B of A. He knows that stocks are based on public opinion and the belief that they will rise or fall. Once investors lose confidence in B of A, or once they learn of underhanded dealings there, it could bring about lawsuits that will really hurt the bank. Go get 'em Julian!

I can't wait to read them. Although, I am sure we will need to go to La Monde or Der Spiegel for access to them. I will let others debate the merit of the disclosures while I and the rest of the world take this opportunity to get educated.

I'm not entirely comfortable with a bank deciding to stop payments from its customers to any organization, simply because they have a dispute with that organization. It sets a bad precedent. What if Bank of America has a legal dispute with Amazon or another major retailer? Can they prevent their customers from shopping at Amazon? What if a bank determines that a charity or other non-profit has violated an agreement, or failed to make payments? Can they block all of their customers from donating to that non-profit? Is that legal?

I for one want to know western contributions to 3rd world corruption:
- allegation that the President of Sudan has stashed over $7B (!!!) w/LloydsBank
- how BP was able to cover up the CaspianSea gas blowout & what pressure it applied on Azerbaijan gov't. & the $10B theft???
- how Shell has such a lock on Nigerian oil that they claim to have informants in every ministry & knew of Gazprom interest w/Nigerian gov't
- why american co. Chevron was talking w/the Iranians contrary to UN sanctions sponsored by the USgov't
- why Pfizer conducted unauthorised tests on Nigerian children

where is America's moral outrage for the Truth?

oh well, since no one will get sued, we will have to wait for the other 237000 cables.....

I also don't like the financial institutions acting to block Wikileaks from processing transactions. It seems like tortious interference to me. If they have a legitimate claim against the company for doing something illegal, then let them prosecute it in a court of law. I am dubious about the sexual assault claims. I have seen enough of the legal system myself to know it is very often used as a tool of intimidation and financial attack.

It is unfortunate that Wikileaks has had to expose such entities as B of A in this manner. HOWEVER, I also believe that it is long over due.

I am a victim of B of A / Merrill Lynch's fraud. There have been a lot of things going on behind the scenes that people have not been privy to. This is the reason why our "nations" are in such a state of despair. (Madoff, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, AIG, UBS, the list goes on).

The goal, should not be to further collapse the "economies", but to expose those that continue in their fraud while they exploit the people (in a responsible manner). "Don't take my options away". Let me choose whether I am willing to accept the terms of doing business with you.

I believe that this mess that we are in, will ultimately force people to be more accountable in their affairs, and hopefully force the entities to do better, more honest business especially concerniing protection of their customers (LOL).

America is a disgusting war machine. If you invade another country on false pretenses you have no right to any form of secrecy. America has put these people's life's at danger not wiki-leaks. Wiki-leaks has redacted most of the names of informants and people at danger. All I see is straw-man argument against them. Of course general opinion outside the Us and government bodies is in support of wiki-leaks and like all great heroes, Assange has been villianised by those whom he has exsposed.

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